The present invention relates to semiconductor manufacturing technology, and more particularly, to a method and system of experiment management employed in a semiconductor manufacturing environment.
A conventional semiconductor factory typically includes the requisite fabrication tools to process semiconductor wafers for a particular purpose, such as photolithography, chemical-mechanical polishing, or chemical vapor deposition. During manufacture, the semiconductor wafer passes through a series of process steps, which are performed by various fabrication tools. For example, in the production of an integrated semiconductor product, the semiconductor wafer passes through up to 600 process steps.
In order to develop a new generation technology such as 90 nm or 65 nm semiconductor product, numerous experiment plans may be designed and performed. For example, a new material may be applied in a specific layer in a semiconductor product, a recipe may be tuned in active layer or metal layer etching, or an active layer electrical test may be performed. The object of experiment plans is typically to increase device performance or yield, or identify causal events for failed wafers. These experiment plans, however, consume numerous resources such as sample wafers, tool capacities, or others, resulting in increased development costs. In some situations, two or more experiment plans can be integrated into a single experiment to reduce development costs. Conventionally, experiment plans are merged manually, requiring an operator to examine hundreds of experiment records merging some into a single experiment under relevant circumstances. The labor-intensive nature of experiment plan merging using conventional means severely hinders efficiency. Additionally, it is difficult to merge experiments in real-time by relying on manual effort alone to satisfy a rapid response requirement. Therefore, a need exists for a system and method of experiment management that provides an effective merging mechanism for various experiment plans, thereby reducing development costs.